Prevalence of virulence factors in Staphylococcus intermedius isolates from dogs and pigeons

BACKGROUND: Staphylococcus intermedius has been isolated from healthy dogs and pigeons as well as diseased dogs. Similar to Staphylococcus aureus, S. intermedius is known to carry many virulence factors but most of these factors remain to be studied. In this study, we examined 106 S. intermedius isolates (44 dog isolates and 62 pigeon isolates) for their hemolytic activity, biofilm formation, protease activity, and clumping factor and protein A production. RESULTS: Forty-three dog isolates (97.7%) and all pigeon isolates were hemolytic on sheep RBCs with a mean hemolytic titer of 336.7 and 47.32, respectively, whereas 43 dog isolates (97.7%) and 11 pigeon isolates (17.7%) exhibited a significant difference in their hemolytic activity on rabbit RBCs with a mean hemolytic titer of 11.04 and 3.76, respectively (p < 0.0005). The mean biofilm formation activity for dog isolates was 0.49, which was significantly higher than that (0.33) for pigeon isolates (p < 0.0005). Twenty-four dog isolates (54.5%) and 11 pigeon isolates (17.7%) were protease positive. Twenty-four dog isolates (54.5%) were clumping factor- and protein A- positive. CONCLUSION: S. intermedius strains carrying the virulence factors examined in this study were more prevalent in dogs than pigeons

肩甲切痕のバリエーション-3DCT による検討

BACKGROUND:Although cadaveric studies have revealed suprascapular notch shape variations, few have investigated the association between suprascapular notch variation and age or gender. The purpose of this study was to investigate suprascapular notch shape variations by use of three-dimensional computed tomography (3DCT) and to determine if there was any association with age or gender.METHODS:Three-dimensional CT images of 762 shoulders of 762 patients were analyzed in this study. Participants comprised 404 men and 358 women, with an average age of 58.2 ± 19.1 years. Suprascapular notch shape variations were classified into six types on the basis of Rengachary's classification.RESULTS:Of the total study population, 11.4% were classified as type I, 23.5% as type II, 30.1% as type III, 14.8% as type IV, 15.9% as type V, and 4.3% as type VI. Average age was 56.5 ± 20.5 years for type I, 57.0 ± 19.5 years for type II, 55.5 ± 20.0 years for type III, 56.4 ± 18.5 years for type IV, 65.5 ± 14.4 years for type V, and 68.0 ± 13.4 years for type VI. Statistically significant age differences were found between types I-IV and V, between types I-IV and VI, and between the non-ossification group (types I-IV) and the ossification group (types V and VI). Male-to-female ratio among each type, and between the non-ossification group and the ossification group, were not statistically significantly different.CONCLUSIONS:Our results suggest that transverse scapular ligament ossification is associated with aging whereas individual variation explains differences among types I, II, III, and IV. Three-dimensional CT provides useful information for arthroscopic resection of the transverse scapular ligament, when the wide variety of suprascapular notch shape variations is considered.LEVEL OF EVIDENCE:Level IV.博士（医学）・乙第1361号・平成27年5月28日© Springer International Publishing AG, Part of Springer Science+Business Media. The definitive version is available at " http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00776-014-0636-x "© The Japanese Orthopaedic Association 201

Curated genome annotation of Oryza sativa ssp. japonica and comparative genome analysis with Arabidopsis thaliana

We present here the annotation of the complete genome of rice Oryza sativa L. ssp. japonica cultivar Nipponbare. All functional annotations for proteins and non-protein-coding RNA (npRNA) candidates were manually curated. Functions were identified or inferred in 19,969 (70%) of the proteins, and 131 possible npRNAs (including 58 antisense transcripts) were found. Almost 5000 annotated protein-coding genes were found to be disrupted in insertional mutant lines, which will accelerate future experimental validation of the annotations. The rice loci were determined by using cDNA sequences obtained from rice and other representative cereals. Our conservative estimate based on these loci and an extrapolation suggested that the gene number of rice is ~32,000, which is smaller than previous estimates. We conducted comparative analyses between rice and Arabidopsis thaliana and found that both genomes possessed several lineage-specific genes, which might account for the observed differences between these species, while they had similar sets of predicted functional domains among the protein sequences. A system to control translational efficiency seems to be conserved across large evolutionary distances. Moreover, the evolutionary process of protein-coding genes was examined. Our results suggest that natural selection may have played a role for duplicated genes in both species, so that duplication was suppressed or favored in a manner that depended on the function of a gene

Associations between the orexin (hypocretin) receptor 2 gene polymorphism Val308Ile and nicotine dependence in genome-wide and subsequent association studies

Impact of the HCRTR2 gene risk variant on schizotypal personality traits (mean ± SD). (DOC 54 kb

Phospholipase C-β4 Is Essential for the Progression of the Normal Sleep Sequence and Ultradian Body Temperature Rhythms in Mice

BACKGROUND: THE SLEEP SEQUENCE: i) non-REM sleep, ii) REM sleep, and iii) wakefulness, is stable and widely preserved in mammals, but the underlying mechanisms are unknown. It has been shown that this sequence is disrupted by sudden REM sleep onset during active wakefulness (i.e., narcolepsy) in orexin-deficient mutant animals. Phospholipase C (PLC) mediates the signaling of numerous metabotropic receptors, including orexin receptors. Among the several PLC subtypes, the beta4 subtype is uniquely localized in the geniculate nucleus of thalamus which is hypothesized to have a critical role in the transition and maintenance of sleep stages. In fact, we have reported irregular theta wave frequency during REM sleep in PLC-beta4-deficient mutant (PLC-beta4-/-) mice. Daily behavioral phenotypes and metabotropic receptors involved have not been analyzed in detail in PLC-beta4-/- mice, however. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Therefore, we analyzed 24-h sleep electroencephalogram in PLC-beta4-/- mice. PLC-beta4-/- mice exhibited normal non-REM sleep both during the day and nighttime. PLC-beta4-/- mice, however, exhibited increased REM sleep during the night, their active period. Also, their sleep was fragmented with unusual wake-to-REM sleep transitions, both during the day and nighttime. In addition, PLC-beta4-/- mice reduced ultradian body temperature rhythms and elevated body temperatures during the daytime, but had normal homeothermal response to acute shifts in ambient temperatures (22 degrees C-4 degrees C). Within the most likely brain areas to produce these behavioral phenotypes, we found that, not orexin, but group-1 metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR)-mediated Ca(2+) mobilization was significantly reduced in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (LGNd) of PLC-beta4-/- mice. Voltage clamp recordings revealed that group-1 mGluR-mediated currents in LGNd relay neurons (inward in wild-type mice) were outward in PLC-beta4-/- mice. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These lines of evidence indicate that impaired LGNd relay, possibly mediated via group-1 mGluR, may underlie irregular sleep sequences and ultradian body temperature rhythms in PLC-beta4-/- mice

Bacillus cereus ノ サンセイスル タイネツ ドクソ ノ サイボウ ドクセイ ニカンスル ケンキュウ

筑波大学博士 (医学) 学位論文・平成10年3月23日授与 (甲第1945号)付: 参考文